Bitcoin Developers Propose Quantum Defenses, Potentially Freezing Vulnerable Coins

Bitcoin, founded on the principle that only the private key holder can access their coins, is facing a challenge from its own developer community. A proposal, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-361, has been updated to include a plan to migrate coins to quantum-resistant addresses or risk having them frozen by the network. This move is part of efforts to build defenses against future quantum computers that could compromise the Bitcoin blockchain. The proposal, put forward by Jameson Loop and other cryptographers, involves a three-phase migration process. Phase A would block new bitcoin from being sent to old-style addresses, while Phase B would render old-style signatures invalid, effectively freezing coins. A potential rescue, Phase C, is still under research and could allow holders to prove ownership and recover frozen coins using zero-knowledge proof. The community is pushing back against the proposal, citing concerns that it undermines Bitcoin's core principle of sovereign control over funds. Developers argue that the measure is defensive, aiming to protect the Bitcoin ecosystem from potential quantum threats. A recent Google report warned that a sufficiently powerful quantum machine could compromise the Bitcoin blockchain more easily than initially thought, prompting concerns about a 2029 'quantum deadline' for bitcoin. The current sum of all BTC in vulnerable addresses is approximately 6.7 million, according to the Google study. The proposal builds upon BIP-360, which introduced a new transaction type called pay-to-Merkle-root (P2MR), designed to enable a soft fork and reduce quantum-era risks.